


Triptych

by Gairid



Category: Vampire Chronicles - All Media Types, Vampire Chronicles - Anne Rice
Genre: M/M, Romance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-03-07
Updated: 2011-03-07
Packaged: 2017-10-16 04:32:40
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 918
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/168444
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Gairid/pseuds/Gairid
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Three trios of drabbles exploring the relationship between Louis and Armand after they left Paris in 1862. Spans an indeterminate amount of time.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Triptych Une

****

Tritych Une

 **Urgency**

 **(Louis)**

His hands traveled my flesh with measured urgency, as though such focus might call forth from me more than mere capitulation. His pink tongue was caught between his front teeth, riotous auburn curls tumbled upon his brow.

My body responded to his considerable skill and in such moments my mind fled easily from all that had occurred—licentious sensation had often signaled release from pain, brief though that sensation might be.

When he'd drawn from me all that he could, he gazed at me with luminous eyes, never once asking those questions that had answers he did not wish to hear.

 **Resist**

 **(Louis)**

For years I did not resist Armand's physical advances, abandoning myself to acts incrementally depraved, degradations that I had no name for then or now. My body healed slowly and he would become solicitous, offering his powerful blood with a mild look that belied the avidity pulsing beneath. He craved emotional capitulation above most things.

“He made you weak, yet you pine for him still.”

“You could force me, I suppose.” I said pointedly.

He never did, though he would occasionally take my blood no matter what resistance I put forth, his dissatisfaction grew and my endurance strengthened.

 **Surrender**

 **(Armand)**

His first surrender was a surprise; he had been enveloped in coldness for the first year or two that we traveled together. It was only later that I understood that it was not surrender.

I expected passivity; he was anything but, yet although his flesh was wanton he was remote, mind as closed as he could manage. When I would probe and sift I felt rage and despair in equal measure -- there was no tenderness in his arms, no settling of his spirit, only restless insatiability as he looked for relief from anguish that I could not provide.


	2. Triptych Deux

****

Tritych Deux

 **Recapture**

 **(Louis)**

Somehow I'd convinced myself that there were secrets that could be plumbed only by visiting the outer reaches of physical pain; there had been moments when I felt close to some ecstatic revelation, a way to recapture all that had been lost.

Madness, yet if I had not allowed Armand his way I wouldn't have chanced upon that unguarded thought drifting like smoke between us for that brief moment. It was entirely possible that he wanted me to think it was chance only; not all of my agony was physical and not all of it had been inflicted by him.

 

 **Frustration**

 **(Armand)**

Short, desperate breaths and skin bedewed with bloodsweat; Louis suffers so beautifully. He endures for nights on end, striving for something that seems only just beyond his reach. I am fascinated by the glassy sheen of his eyes and his silent acquiescence to my whims. His silence is broken when he allows himself release and I take my reward in the music of his keening. It is all the reward I have, yet it obliterates some of the vexing frustration he is able to draw from me.

One day I shall have to thank Lestat for bringing him to us.

 

 **Renaissance**

 **(Armand)**

There were times when I chose to trade my more arcane passions regarding the exploration of Louis's body for more mundane pursuits. Thus, I would see him absorbed with things that held no connection with Lestat or with Claudia.

One night, wandering the _Uffizi_ among some of the highest art the Renaissance had to offer he relaxed, seized as he was by the beauty around us. There was light conversation and very little of the tension that often attended any attempt on my part to engage him.

Imagine my surprise when turned and said “Tell me about Nicolas.”


	3. Triptych Trois

****

Triptych Trois

 **Something Wicked**

 **(Louis)**

Something wicked danced deep in Armand's dark eyes belying the sympathetic, hypnotic note in his voice. He seemed most alive at such times, fascinated with the dissection of any slight emotion he might wring from me.

“He never told you, did he. Perhaps because you are very like Nicolas was.” I waited in silence until he continued. “Nicolas was one of Lestat's more unfortunate fledglings.”

One of them? I thought. One? He waited for me to speak.

“Where is he?” I said finally.

“Destroyed.”

He did not elaborate and I asked no more questions that night.

 

 **Arrest**

 **(Louis)**

One of Lestat's fledglings, Armand had said, which meant that there was at least one other. The thought would arrest my thinking for hours. Why had Lestat never told me? Because this other, this Nicolas had been very like me?

I had learned in a most devastating way that Armand's version of the truth was likely skewed toward whatever end suited him. Something instinctive insisted that there was a kernel of truth within his convoluted misdirection.

The idea that Lestat might still be alive sprang from these musings; so great was my turmoil that I wondered whether it even mattered.

 

 **One Question**

 **(Louis)**

Once the idea that Lestat had survived occurred to me, I wondered that I had not paid attention to the small voice within me that had insisted that I would know if he were truly gone. My initial desolation had been replaced with an absurd elation counterpointed with one question; if he were alive why had he not sought me out?

The last words Lestat had called to me told me that he had not given up. The sharpness in Armand's glance told me he knew the specific direction of my thoughts but I found that it no longer mattered.

FIN 


End file.
